


Hair Care

by AsheBlender



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e19 Young Blood Old Souls, Hopeful Ending, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26237383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsheBlender/pseuds/AsheBlender
Summary: Unruly hair brings two lost sisters closer together.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Lilith Clawthorne
Comments: 13
Kudos: 248





	Hair Care

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a post 'Young Blood Old Souls' story since it aired, so here's what I got! I love Lilith, by the by. Even when she revealed she cursed Eda, I was still interested in her reasoning. Because she still seemed to genuinely care for her sister despite it all. The fact that it was all just one small act of petty jealousy that ruined things between them is so tragic. And, I'm really looking forward to them slowly working things out. This is my contribution to just such a thing.
> 
> ...Also, I love the idea of frizzy hair Lilith.

It had been a rather trying couple of days for Lilith, to say the least.

Don’t get her wrong. She deserved every bit of pain, discomfort, and inconvenience that she received. That was nothing compared to what Edalyn had been through for the twenty plus years she’d dealt with being stricken with a near debilitating curse. And, she was the one that caused it. No matter how much of an accident it had been. A whole life had been ruined by one petty action. And, Lilith, always one to have a narrow focus, had put her entire being into finding a cure for her sister. Sometimes, even at the expense of said sister.

In the end, she realizes that she was acting like she knew something about what she knew decidedly nothing about. The idea that Belos would have ever healed Edalyn was laughable, when one took even a second to think about it. But, she had been so desperate. Desperate in ways both selfish and admirable. She genuinely wanted to cure her sister of this horrible curse. But, she also wanted to be rid of the horrible, clawing guilt that had never released her heart. In her efforts to get her sister to join the Emperor’s Coven, she’d lost herself. Nothing had made that point so abundantly clear than when she’d tried to exacerbate Edalyn’s magic use by going after Luz. In the adrenaline of the battle, it seemed like that was the only logical thing to do. The last chance of getting Edalyn to come with her. To get cured!

Yeah. Right.

In the end, none of those efforts mattered. She was now cast out of her coven. The Emperor likely wanted her head. And, she had several broken relationships with pieces so scattered that she didn’t know where to start. Edalyn was grateful for the save and touched that Lilith had taken on half the curse for her, but there was still an air of distrust in her eyes. Of hurt and anger. That was only natural. It hurt tremendously to see those emotions in her eyes, but she deserved every amount of it. She’d had nightmares, before, of her sister finding out what she’d done. This wasn’t quite as bad as those, but it still twisted her guts up something awful.

Luz still didn’t like her very much, which was also expected. She’d hurt Edalyn and, as she’d found out, Luz genuinely loved the older woman. It was more than a simple mentorship. That much was obvious. The love was clearly reciprocated. She appreciated what Lilith had done to make up for all the wrongs she’d done, but… it would take much longer for her to forget that Lilith had used her. She’d been used as bait to draw Edalyn in. Nearly been killed in the process.

One relationship that she hadn’t expected to shatter quite so spectacularly was with her protege, Amity Blight. The moment she’d found out that Lilith was staying at the Owl House, she’d hobbled her way down and taken nearly half an hour to _thoroughly_ make her feelings of her clear. By the end, Lilith was slumped into the couch and just taking a verbal beating about ‘the honor of witches’. The fact that Edalyn stayed quiet the whole time was incredibly telling. Needless to say, Lilith no longer had a protege. Not that she could have taught any kind of magic in the state she was in, but the point was made regardless.

She was living at her sister’s home, now. She felt it was undeserved, but Edalyn had reminded her that the Emperor would be hunting for her now. She was a coven-less witch _and_ had betrayed him. ‘So, technically, he probably wants you double petrified’ her younger sister had said with a shrug. And, so, she had opted to pretty much stay in the house for the time being. Mostly, she just tried to stay out of everyone’s way. Everyone had their routines. She didn’t belong in any of them. She was just clinging on, trying to figure out what to do with her life now that it had been so spectacularly turned upside down. She didn’t belong here, with all this love and affection. What kind of person would happily accept a snake that had already bitten them more than once?

It was a particularly striking bit of loneliness. Even when she’d been in the Emperor’s Coven, she’d interacted with other witches. Now? She would silently slip down to the kitchen for some tea in the morning, then get herself out of everyone’s way as they started to wake up. She did whatever she was asked to do to help. Only spoke when spoken to. Kept in the shadowy parts of the house. Occasionally coughed up feathers (which had scared her the first time it happened). She kept her emotions locked tight. She didn’t deserve to be upset. She didn’t _get_ to be upset.

This morning, she had woken up feeling worse than usual. The lock seemed harder to keep on. She’d gone about her usual routine to distract herself. Silently stretch, put her contacts in, go toward the cracked mirror on a desk she had to fix the small kinks in her straight hair. It was getting harder and harder to do with no magic or hair care products, but she’d managed with a brush. They were small kinks. Manageable on her own. But, this particular morning, she’d come to the mirror to find her hair a complete mess. It billowed out in a mess of dark blue curls, puffy and tangled and _everywhere_. The grey stripe stood out noticeably, following several of the locks behind her pointed ear.

_A young girl with glasses and a shock of ginger hair stares back, looking sad and bitter. She loves her sister, but she’s so frustrated. ‘She’s so much better than me when I train twice as hard! It’s not fair!’_

‘ _If only… just for one day…’_

For a moment, she thinks her contacts must have slipped out. Because, her entire world blurs wetly. It’s only when a harsh sob quakes from her own mouth that she realizes she’s crying. Her nails have pressed into the desk and are scraping down the wood. She’s disgusted by the way she looks. Those tangled, dark locks that she could never fix on her own. The way her hair frizzes outward like it used to do when she was well over a decade younger. Her hands come up from the desk, yanking at the knots her unwieldy hair has put itself into. She can’t stop the tears from flowing, she hates it, _she hates it_.

‘ _Wow, sis, your hair’s super pretty.” Edalyn says with a little grin, jumping up on the sink as Lilith tries to comb and tame the unruly mess. The girl in question pouts into the mirror._

“ _It’s not pretty, it’s a pain in the butt, is what it is.”_

“ _Ha, you said ‘butt’.”_

“ _Edalyn...” Lilith sighs, though can’t help reaching forward to ruffle her little sister’s hair with a little smile. “I promise we’ll play in a sec, okay? I’ve gotta do this or it’ll get all knotted up.”_

_Edalyn is quiet a moment. “Looks like you’re having trouble.”_

“ _I am! It’s, like… it’s everywhere!” She groans, brush dropping onto the sink in exasperation. “And, it’s hard to reach and… gahhh… maybe I should just cut it all off. Or, get it straightened or something.”_

“ _No!” Her sister says, shaking her head rapidly as she hops off the sink. “No, you can’t do that! It looks awesome! I love your hair!”_

“ _I hate dealing with it, though...”_

“ _What if I helped you?”_

“ _You..?”_

“ _Yeah! I can brush the spots you can’t reach! Y’know, ‘cus your hair’s like ‘phooooom’.” The younger girl says, spreading her arms out wide._

_Lilith finds herself laughing, a little snort slipping out. “Okay, okay. So, just take this brush and gently-”_

It’s almost as if seeing her hair looking like this again is the shot that finally broke her. In an instant, her carefully crafted walls, her desire to keep it locked in, shatter. Every bit of guilt and agony swell to the surface as Lilith Clawthorne sobs at the person she’s become. How that horrible, selfish choice had completely ruined her life. How she had continued to ruin it by making bad choice after bad choice. The people she’d hurt along the way. Her precious sister, the one she’d held most dear, cast aside for what? She’d been cast out of the coven she’d so longed to join. Longed so hard for that she’d betrayed her sister. All her accomplishments in life meant nothing. All the suffering she’d caused didn’t add up to a single thing.

Nobody wants her here. Why does she linger? What does she imagine will happen? Redemption? No, there was no redemption for one such as her.

She hears someone clear their throat from the doorway. She spins her head around to find Edalyn standing in it, arms crossed as she leans against the frame. Instantly, she’s wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and trying to stand up straighter. She’s horrified that her sister has walked in on her crying like this. She doesn’t deserve to. She shouldn’t be. “E-Edalyn, I-I-” She stammers, sniffling a bit and looking around in panic. "I'm sorry, I-"

The woman doesn’t say anything for a moment, just holding up a hand to shut her up. Her gold and grey eyes are both focused directly on Lilith. Staring into her very soul like Edalyn always seemed to be able to do. She looks like she’s having something of an internal debate. She finally speaks after a few moments, her voice soft and quiet. “Looks like you’re having trouble.”

Lilith blinks a few times, sniffling as her cheeks flush in frustrated embarrassment. She looks away and scrubs her eyes with her pale palms. “A bit. With no access to my usual magic and care products, it’s… a lot less manageable, now.”

“We go _au naturel_ in this house, Lily.”

“I’ve noticed.”

There’s another beat of somewhat tense silence between them. Lilith isn’t sure what else to say. In lieu of sobbing, she now feels surprisingly hollowed out. Then, the other witch speaks up again. “You want some help?”

She looks back to her sister in surprise. Out of all the things that could have been said, that had to have been the last thing she expected. Her blush spreads to her ears, embarrassment increasing exponentially. That tends to happen when your undeserving sister walks in on you having a meltdown. “You don’t have to-”

“Oh, _please_ , Lil. If I don’t step in, you’re going to tear your own hair out trying. You can’t brute force this stuff, ya know.” Edalyn replies as she steps into the room. She doesn’t say anything about what Lilith was doing when she walked in. She’s grateful for that. It’s something she’d rather skirt around for as long as she can. Her sister swipes Lilith’s brush from the sink and spins it in her hand. She steps behind her, Lilith able to see the woman in the mirror. Their eyes meet. Each Clawthorne sister has a grey eye on the opposite side, the streak in their hair much the same.

Edalyn’s eyes look away as she starts combing through her sister’s unruly tangles. And, Lilith can’t bear doing anything but looking down in shame. She definitely can’t look at her own reflection with her puffy eyes and mess of hair. She closes them slowly and gives a quiet sigh. The slow motions of the comb brushing through curly hair is familiar and oddly calming. One of the few things her sister ever cared to take her time doing when she was young. This used to be a time for talking and giggling. But, there’s no words between them, now. Just the silence of the house and the sound of the comb gently shifting through knots and tangles.

“I used to really envy your hair, y’know.”

Lilith opens her mismatched eyes and finds her sister looking at her in the mirror. She doesn’t say anything in response and Edalyn continues on. “I think messing with your hair was one of my favorite things to do as a kid, just because you had so much of the stuff. You could pretty much do anything with it and it’d still look good. And, I was like… well, I can only pull of this one look. But, if I had hair like _that_...”

“It’s a pain. It gets tangled easily because there’s so many curls.” Lilith mumbles, voice quiet. “It’s more trouble than it’s worth, that’s why I straightened it out. Trust me, you wouldn’t like having to handle it on your own.”

The other woman is quiet again. “You’d be surprised what I’m willing to put up with.”

Her heart sinks a bit. “Edalyn, I...”

“It’s fine.”

After that, they slip into silence once more. She’s not sure how much time passes. But, she does know that she’s nearly asleep by the time Edalyn makes a content little hum. Her sister brushing her hair had always made her sleepy, for some reason. Apparently, of all the things that had, this fact hadn’t changed. The other woman’s lips are curled just lightly in a smile, her fang glinting in the mirror. “And, there we go. Tangle free.”

Taking a look at herself, Lilith would admit that her hair does look a lot better. It’s less of a mess than it was previously. It’s still unbelievably curly and voluminous, but much better managed. She’s surprised how good it ends up looking. But, then again, Edalyn always made her mop of hair look fantastic somehow. Her own lips curl in the ghost of a smile. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” The witch says as she carefully sets the brush back down on the desk. “Should probably get started with the day. ‘Professor Luz’ is gonna give me demerits if I’m too late. I really don’t want to get detention with King again.”

Lilith looks down again, nodding. “Right.”

Edalyn gently pats her shoulder, then starts walking toward the door. Before she does, however, she turns back around. “Lily?”

“Yes?”

She watches her sister stand for a few moments.

“I love you. Just want you to know that.” She finally murmurs in a soft voice, mismatched eyes looking at her meaningfully before she turns to continue out of the room. As she leaves, if she tilted her ears just right, she could hear a quiet ‘I love you, too’ in return.


End file.
